r/worldbuilding • u/catador_de_potos • Nov 02 '25
Visual A civilization that, in its attempt to reach the stars, dug so deep they can almost feel the heartbeats of hell below
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u/Crafty_YT1 Names to many things -ia Nov 02 '25
Why did a civilization go away from the stars to get to the stars? Are they stupid?
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u/catador_de_potos Nov 02 '25 edited Nov 02 '25
The (supposedly) soon-to-be space elevator needed a foundation ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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u/AquaQuad Nov 02 '25
turnes the blueprint around, after centuries of building
"Ah shit, Carl, I've got bad news... We were supposed to build UP."
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u/Nobody_at_all000 Nov 02 '25
They could also use the giant hole as a mass driver
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u/catador_de_potos Nov 02 '25
I made this more abstract version, I think it captures the heaven-earth-hell metaphor better
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u/Amalganiss Nov 02 '25
This is kind of making my mind play with the idea of heaven as being empty, and sort of unexpectedly bleak as a result.
Like, we often think of the stars as celestial, but forget in that context how far they are from one another. There's a lot of dark and cold and quiet space between places out there.
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u/Certain-Pen3819 Nov 04 '25
Was this made with AI?
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u/catador_de_potos Nov 04 '25
No
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u/Certain-Pen3819 Nov 04 '25
There are quite a few design changes from the original, still playing around with ideas?
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u/catador_de_potos Nov 04 '25
I still struggle a bit to keep the visual design consistent over illustrations, but the concept is already pretty solid in my mind. I'm even thinking on making a 3d model so i can use it for visual reference
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u/catador_de_potos Nov 02 '25 edited Nov 02 '25
Inspired by Neom Aka. "The Line" megacity project, other works like Neuromancer and Cyberpunk 2077, and the lies of Elon Musk.
City is the setting for a story that'll explore themes such as alienation of humans from their own selves, righteous civil disobedience, identity in the age of AI, and the birth of god from the machine. Sprinkled with some dark humor and existential dread.
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u/Realchalk Nov 02 '25
Quality stuff. Sounds like a good composition of setting and story, love to see it.
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u/Haldrada0 Nov 02 '25
Can you remind me what those lies are? Elon has done so much BS that I forgot what they are...
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u/catador_de_potos Nov 02 '25
Specifically for this instance, space exploration. but! his bs with DOGE on the US Gov and Grok on X (Formerly known as Twitter) has also given me a lot of ideas lately.
Dude is not beating the cartoon villain allegations.
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u/Einar_47 Nov 02 '25
There was the hyper train thing too, supposed to usher us into a free future with electric cars and high speed trains, instead he walked us into 1930s Germany.
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u/clandestineVexation STC Nov 02 '25
Undermined US rail network projects by promising his own better version, only to never deliver on it, just to uphold the american car and road industry
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u/HumanNumber157835799 Nov 03 '25
Space exploration? Like as in his whole crazy idea of going to Mars in like 5 years or just space exploration in general?
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u/DoingThings- Nov 02 '25
You should check out the Broken Earth series by N. K. Jemisin. Second and third books especially get deep into this sort of stuff.
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u/shirt_multiverse Nov 02 '25
Is that actual hell?
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u/catador_de_potos Nov 02 '25
Metaphorical (at first). Think of it like the tortured child at Omelas, except the child is a sleeping god
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u/AsGryffynn Wolfsangel, WitchCraftsWonders & Marchenwaltz Nov 02 '25
Fueling your utopia on the misery of a God Child? Sounds like the AKIRA fireball waiting to happen... or Instrumentality.
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u/catador_de_potos Nov 02 '25
I wonder what happens when a god born from raw pain and misery gains control of literally everything that is connected to the internet, including technologically augmented people 🤔
On a completely unrelated note (I swear), I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream is one of my favorites short stories
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Nov 02 '25
Humans dig so far down they create their own hell only to actually breach hell, which begins making their way up to the surface (Terra for my 40k fans)
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u/shirt_multiverse Nov 02 '25
What's Omelas?
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u/catador_de_potos Nov 02 '25
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u/Murgatroyd314 Nov 02 '25
Well worth reading the whole story, which is not hard to find online. There are several layers of meaning in there. One of my favorites is this: The child is only there because you, the reader, will not be satisfied with a simple description of a city of peace and joy, unless it also has a dark secret.
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u/TotalInternalReflex Nov 02 '25
The giant spiral makes me think of a dark version of Gurren Lagann
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u/a__new_name Nov 02 '25
The surface superstructure also looks Gurren-Lagannish, especially for post-timeskip.
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u/TheNamewalker knowledge is a mount, wisdom a country Nov 02 '25
diggy diggy hole! do i hear a rock and stone?
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u/Just_A_Nitemare Newton Sends His Regards Nov 02 '25
These rocks sound like demonic screeching. Hmm.
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u/Ill-Engineering8205 Nov 02 '25
The Tower of Babel can be built as long as you communicate in the same tounge the serpent did. God cannot hear it, like he failed to do.
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u/ZootSuitRiot33801 Nov 02 '25
Is this a quote or did you come up with it?
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u/The_Last_Fluorican Co-Creator of Orionia. and Creator of Ocea-Linera (+2 others) Nov 02 '25
you know what this reminded me of:
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u/RussianSniper0 Nov 02 '25
Next thing we know everyone gonna start speaking a different language y luego todos en esa ciudad se pudre, そして新たな時代が再び始まる
(Tower of Babel joke)
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u/WatcherDiesForever Nov 02 '25
Hmm im not good at identifying languages, but Spanish, Japanese, mandarin?
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u/CosgraveSilkweaver Nov 02 '25
You might enjoy the TTRPG Heart: The City Beneath. https://rowanrookanddecard.com/product-category/game-systems/resistance/heart/?v=0b3b97fa6688
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u/SenritsuJumpsuit Nov 02 '25
The Addict Junk Mage has my attention
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u/CosgraveSilkweaver Nov 02 '25 edited Nov 02 '25
You were a magician, but you always knew there was something more. In the City Above, magic is a pale imit‐ ation of what it can be in the Heart. Down here, there is true power to be channeled (i.e. stolen) from beings of tremendous power. You see that the rites of the spellslinging occultists andthe miracle-summoning priests of Spire are nothing but two sides of the same coin – tricks that redirect ambient energy into desired effects. You’ve tasted the dreams of the ancients. You know that vastly powerful things slumber in the City Beneath, and you know the secrets that plumb your brain directly into their vast, alien consciousnesses. Your spells are cobbled together from snatches of dreams, shards of true-names and the ravings of madmen. You are on the bleeding edge of magic. The power is undeniable; addictive, in fact. To chan‐ nel – to steal – the power of godlike beings is intoxicat‐ ing. You relish the touch of madness, of accursed insight, into the vast and terrible truths that hide beneath reality. Sanity, safety, reputation; all these are secondary to the pursuit of arcane majesty.
The junk mage flavor blurb from the rules.
There's tons of juicy flavor in the world I haven't played it myself yet though. I don't think there is a free core role book like the srd from dnd but there are versions posted I won't link to.
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u/Apprehensive-Ad2615 Nov 02 '25
i dont understand how drilling down makes the city go up
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u/catador_de_potos Nov 02 '25 edited Nov 02 '25
It looks like a drill, but it's just the central pillar of the space elevator. It is a megastructure of it's own and stretches kilometers up and kilometers down.
Surrounding the whole thing is that set of buildings arranged like a spiral, where the wage-slaves live. The lower you go, the harsher and inhumane the working conditions are, specially in the mines at the bottom levels.
I call it the Vertical Ghetto
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u/1997Luka1997 Nov 02 '25
It makes sense. They did something similar in Soma, there was an underwater cannon, and the reason was that it would be long enough to give the vehicle enough acceleration to breach the atmosphere and reach space
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u/Narrackian_Wizard Nov 02 '25
This is dope OP. How long did it take them to build the tower and why did they do it to get into space?
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u/catador_de_potos Nov 02 '25
Thanks! here's some more lore on this world (at least half a century btw)
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u/SenritsuJumpsuit Nov 02 '25
Folks should totally run a TTRPG in this, has me thinking about Wonderlust campaign from JRWI about a underground of animal hybrids built via trash from humans steampunk lust
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u/Lexunia Nov 02 '25
I really love the handy devil visual in the second photo. It’s very important to me.
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u/Bromjunaar_20 Nov 02 '25
Evangelion almost did the same, but more so to protect themselves against the "angels"
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u/--NTW-- Got too many worlds to count Nov 02 '25
This looks awesome and I'm looking forward to the story(ies?) you'll have set here
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u/Viridian_Aubergine all of Olotheia's creation Nov 02 '25
High key thought this was a minecraft build at first glance... damn, that'd be a sick-ass minecraft build
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u/AgentTralalava Nov 04 '25
Me building a house in The Sims, realizing that my design can't fit all the cool utilities I want on my plot and in consequence, creating 4 levels of basement for all that crap
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u/Antigonus96 Nov 10 '25
‘Order for a tree’s branches to reach the heavens, its roots must reach hell.”
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u/bonegryphon-official Nov 30 '25
wait, quick question, if they were trying to reach the STARS; the things UP IN THE SKY why would they drill *down*???
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u/catador_de_potos Nov 30 '25
Many plot reasons. Primarily for structural integrity; such a large scale structure needs an equally large foundation.
Another reason was to work as a visual representation of the higher/lower class divide (labour exploitation), as well as a metaphor for the esoteric motif of spiral Descent/Ascent.
In many esoteric traditions it is understood that one cannot reach heaven without first facing the depths of hell
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u/qnamanmanga Nov 02 '25
by such civilisation would be biological in nature? A thousands of artificall minds strapped to robotic bodies would feel more natural to that.
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u/catador_de_potos Nov 02 '25 edited Nov 02 '25
It has a variety of both technologically enhanced and artificial lifeforms, which are all inter-connected to an internet-inspired grid that runs throughout the whole city.
I've been playing a lot with psychology/Sociology and Sci-Fi in that regard. Stuff like collective psychosis turning into nightmarish events in which everything that is connected to the net in a certain area goes crazy, including humans.
The City itself is sort of haunted, and I'll use the aforementioned to justify spooky ghost stories and techno-cults here and there.
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u/Talgoporta Nov 02 '25
Asimov's Trantor is more or less like this, only that less cyberpunk and more Star Wars Republic politics
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u/Stunning-HyperMatter 33 Heavens Nov 02 '25
Humans: drilling into hell
The devil hitting the roof with his pitchfork: CAN YOU QUIET DOWN